1. Puget Sound Nearshore Change and Restoration Potential GEOG 469- Spring 2010 Aaron Blunt Jasmin Lafradez James Schuyleman

2. Who are We?  PSNERP Partnership  Miles Logsdon Senior Lecturer UW – Department of Oceanography  Professor Timothy Nyerges UW – Department of Geography T.A. - Josef Eckert  GEOG 469 – PSNERP Group Aaron Blunt Jasmin Lafradez James Schuyleman

3. Puget Sound o “Extends approximately 2,500 miles from the Canadian Border, throughout the Puget Sound and out the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Neah Bay.” o http://www.pugetsoundnearshore.org/what.htm http://www.pugetsoundnearshore.org/what.htm o Contains Marine and Estuarine Shorelines. o PSNERP envisions a healthy Puget Sound full of marine life (i.e. Orcas, Blue Herons, Native Shellfish, Salmon, as well as Eelgrass Meadows). Source: www.ecy.wa.gov

4. Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project Overview  Established in 2001.  Funded by: The US Army Corps of Engineers, Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife as well as state and local organizations.  “…Evaluate significant ecosystem degradation in the Puget Sound Basin; to formulate, evaluate, and screen potential solutions to these problems and to recommend a series of actions and projects that have a federal interest and are supported by a local entity willing to provide the necessary items of local cooperation” http://www.pugetsoundnearshore.org/what.htm

5. What is the Nearshore?  The Nearshore is the “connection” between land and water body.  Includes Photic Zone downwards 100 meters up to the Coastline.  Contains numerous marine and wildlife.  Nearshore is essential for ecological processes.  An understanding of Nearshore changes can increase public support. Source: www.pugetsoundnearshore.org

6. Problem Statement & Purpose  Problem: Identify areas where Historical Shoreforms have transitioned to other types of Shoreforms.  Purpose: Contribute to the General Investigation for the PSNERP Partnership.

7. Project Goal  To conduct a Tier 1 change analysis between historical and current shoreforms in the Puget Sound. Implement a form of change analysis built on the principal of land adjacency. In addition, implement another form of change analysis on the principal of distance separation.

8. Project Methods  PSNERP Database – South Puget Sound Sub-Basin  Locate Historical Shoreforms  Locate Current Shoreform Records  Identify changes  Buffer  Adjacency Source: http://extratextual.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/300 px-golden_gardens_05.jpg

9. Need-to-know Questions  1. Where are Historical Barrier Beaches located at in the South Puget Sound Sub-Basin? Software requirements: ArcGIS (ArcCatalog, ArcMap) Hardware requirements: ~1 GB memory space for South Puget Sound Sub-basin Geodatabase provided by PSNERP.

11. Need-to-know Questions 2. Which of the Historical Barrier Beaches have transitioned to a different Shoreform?

13. Need-to-know Questions  3. Are changes in Historical Barrier Beaches associated with adjacent shoreforms? After locating the Historical Barrier Beaches that have transitioned into different shoreforms, we created an analysis zone equal to its historical length, that surrounds the changed shoreforms. Shoreforms contained in those areas are classified as the “adjacent” shoreforms.

15. Need-to-know Questions  4. What is the separation between the changed historical Barrier beaches? A “straight line” distance analysis was conducted to compute the separation between each area of changed shoreforms.

16. Units in Meters

17. Project Results – Shoreform Frequency Table o 11,656 total shoreforms in the South Puget Sound Sub-basin. o Total of 1,849 Historical Barrier Beaches Current Shoreforms Shoreform Transitions Barrier Beaches Bluff- Backed beaches Pocket Beaches Open Coastal Inlet Barrier Lagoon Closed Lagoon/Ma rsh Barrier EstuaryDeltaArtificialTotal Barrier Beaches178511------531849 Bluff-Backed beaches-5626------1365762 Pocket Beaches---------0 Open Coastal Inlet---2316--173-1192608 Barrier Lagoon----207---37244 Historical Shoreforms Closed Lagoon/Marsh---------0 Barrier Estuary------1100-261126 Delta-------41647 Artificial--------44 None----9---716 Total1785563702316216012734138811656

18. Project Results – Adjacent Shoreforms  Adjacent shoreforms have also been affected.  Barrier Lagoons, Bluff-backed Beaches, and Barrier Estuaries are the types of shoreforms that are adjacent to historical barrier beaches.  Most of them did not transition from historical to current shoreform.  Those that did, have transitioned to “Artificial” shoreforms. Most likely affected by the increase in development. Current Shoreforms Shoreform Transistion Barrier Beaches Bluff-Backed beaches Pocket Beaches Open Coastal Inlet Closed Lagoon/Marsh Barrier EstuaryDeltaArtificialTotal Barrier Beaches9------9 Historical Shoreforms Barrier Lagoon-------18 Bluff-Backed Beaches-51-----1667 Barrier Estuary-----38-- Total95100038034132 o Adjacent Shoreforms Frequency Table

19. Summary  1,849 total Historical Barrier Beaches  64 total Historical Barrier Beaches transitioned to either Bluff-backed beaches or Artificial shoreforms.  Some shoreforms transitioned to artificial shoreforms, but most of them did not change.  The range of separation between changed shoreforms.  Rather than having to focus on 64 individual areas of changed shoreforms, the historical barrier beaches, that have changed, are clustered. Therefore, further change analysis will be concentrated to only 10 clusters.

20. Recommendations  If working with PSNERP data, make sure to have a very specific project goal. There is A LOT of data.  Future projects should focus on those identified areas of changed clustered shoreforms.